Has anyone ever told you that English grammar is "different and unexplained"? Different from what, you ask, and unexplained to whom? We have recently been asking ourselves the same questions. Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that "there are no set rules for learning English whereas there are in other languages".

Both of these quotations were among the confident assertions of British university students interviewed as part of a recent pilot project on attitudes towards language learning. Something, it seems, is rotten in the state of education.

Written views collected from more than 200 undergraduate modern languages students in Scotland in September and October 2003 indicated that, given the choice of English, French, German and Spanish, 48% of native speakers of English who offered an opinion considered their own language to be the most difficult to learn for a non-native speaker, with German a long way behind at 26%.

Conversely, 21% thought English the easiest, the same figure as for German, but trailing behind Spanish at 41%. Of more interest than the figures, however, are the kinds of comments made by many students to justify their choices.

For those who believe English is easy, it's mostly down to vocabulary. As one student pointed out in respect of their language: "Words sound more similar and make more sense." Reflexively innocent, this statement is presumably not to be taken as evidence of its own assertion.

Another clear advantage of English is to be found in the fact that "we only have one word for thing[s]." It seems to have passed this observer by that - thanks to waves of invasion of England and subsequent waves of invasion by England of everywhere else - English has arguably the richest and most synonym-laden vocabulary of any language.

Such comments are nevertheless in flat contradiction to the larger number that seek to pinpoint the difficulty of English. To be succinct: "The grammar doesn't make sense." Further insights into the problematic grammar abound: "There seems to be very few rules to follow when learning the language from new. A beginner would have to just learn English as it is." Subject-verb agreement is seemingly not one of these happy "few rules".

Rules? Look, it's like this: "There are so many different things to learn, there is no set rules, and if there are they're always changing." While this statement might not receive prizes for logic or rhetoric, it is widely echoed.

Then there's the issue of evolution. English, it seems, "has not moved on as German has". Could this perceived evolutionary disadvantage be at the root of xenophobia? After all, "most other foreign languages have similar characteristics and are not as intense as English." Such intensity, one almost suspects, may result from lexical relations in a language where "masculine and feminine [are] not so difficult to distinguish." At least English is a real language's language. While not all replies were as lacking in insight as those quoted above, a significant minority were. And yet these students are all learning foreign tongues. It is striking, though, that whatever ignorance of other tongues may be displayed, the greater ignorance is reserved for English.

Ironically, many students' views inscribe them in a long-standing and not altogether unhallowed pseudo-linguistic tradition, which suggests that the more continental the language, the more grammar it has. This is in part a vulgarisation of the useful realisation that Latin grammatical categories apply best to Latinate languages, and are of decreasing usefulness as distance from Latin increases. This does not mean, however, a lack of grammar, if the term is understood to describe structural rules.

Teachers of foreign languages are clearly making some headway in raising students' awareness of grammar in their respective foreign tongues, but the fragmentation of grammar within communicative language teaching, the erstwhile tortuous and limiting insistence on use of the target language only, and the hermetic isolation of other language lessons from English classes have left students to draw the corollary that English, perhaps alone among languages, has no complex or evolved grammatical structure - or that whatever exists is somehow beyond comprehension.

While this lack is beginning to be addressed in British schools, more is needed than a rehearsal of discrete, decontextualised items, which generate little more than insecurity for teachers and confusion - or boredom - for pupils. What is missing is a holistic approach to language, which dares to mention its history, its vocabulary, its lushness - in short, what Addison called its genius - and to teach appreciation for, familiarity with and confidence in creatively using it. Grammar, in the broadest sense, is a part of this.

At the moment, students often lack the opportunity to develop the tools or vocabulary necessary to evaluate the tools and vocabulary they have at hand in their own language. Yes, it's a circular argument.

What it is not, however, is an argument for endless lessons on avoiding split infinitives or appending the one and only appropriate preposition to "different". Rather, it is about linguistic understanding and about seeing grammar not as an enemy, but as an underpinning for choices.

Students' needs are at least threefold. Firstly, they need to know what their choices are and the social consequences these entail. Secondly, they need some access to a literate version of the language in which they can attain an accuracy and clarity of expression that will afford them the chance of being taken seriously by a wider, educated audience, whether their views concur with or differ from those typical of dominant discourses. Thirdly, they need to understand the differences and valorise the richness of language used in other contexts, whether among the kids on the next block or in "txt msgng" and chatrooms. There is a place for difference and standardisation; for badges of identity and clarity of communication; and for choosing appropriate modes at appropriate moments.

Our respondents' comments suggest that many do not yet have such a grasp of their own language. Although there are no easy answers, we must at least begin to respond to and engage with the widespread, limited and limiting notion that "english is probably hard . . . 'cos of the grammar and stuff".

· Colin Hall and Mark Pegrum both teach at the Centre for Applied Language Studies, University of Dundee, Scotland